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This will be a week by week test on not using any treatments on the 50 hives I have regressed to small cell.
Today I moved all my small cell hives into 5 different locations with 10 hives in each location. I will continue treating 5 hives in each location with FGMO fog and the old type cords, and not treating the other 5. I will have weekly mite drop tests and ether roll tests.
All hives are 18 inches above the ground on SBB, with 2 deep hive bodies and starting with 2 suppers with a migratory cover. There will be GardStar ground drench used monthly to control SHB but no other treatments. 5 untreated hives on each site are the test hives and the 5 treated with FGMO will be the control group. This test will start 01/01/2004 in central Florida
Clint

Best success to you. I wish more would get involved with county, state, or "on their own" testing.

If both test groups do good, then your selection from survivors after posting 45% loss two years back, proves that the you had good selection and survivor traits were passed on. Or that 4.9 is enough on its own. Two conclusions. It verifies 4.9 but does not verify FGMO one way or the other.

If one does good with FGMO and the non-FGMO does not, then it could be said that your selection of survivors may be weak. Thus FGMO is helping or continues to help this less than "survive on your own" group. Or that the 4.9 is what makes the difference in this weakened strain helped by 4.9. with FGMO. Two conclusions could be reached. Actually more but the multiple gets me confused.

If both do poor, then multiple conclusions and elements could come into play.

I wish you had three (if not more) groups from your strian of bee to test. One - survivors still on regular comb. You selected survivor traits but this was at the time you were converting to 4.9 (correct?) two - survivors on 4.9 Three - survivors on 4.9 and FGMO.

Do you actually have any survivors that are non-4.9? With or without FGMO?
Testing from survivor strains muddy the data as "is it the method being used" or "the strain already had the capacity to survive". We won't know.

Not to sit on the sidelines and nit-pick, so you know, I have 40 hives treated with strips, and 160 hives not treated at all. None are 4.9 The rest are swarms, splits or hives helped too much this fall to conclude any findings. One hundred russian queens to do splits, and 100 packages of russians are going in this April. None will be treated. I'll bite the bullet this year to make some of my own conclusions. Then my own queen rearing and survivor splits are the plan.

No matter who....I hope someone finds a CLEAR and duplicated answer to the mites.

You were able to move hives today? In Michigan?
Answer:
All but 3 of my hives are down in Florida on pollination contracts

Out of curiosity, who all do you know down in florida?
The people I do polination for and my oldest son who takes care of the bees down there. plus a close cousin on my wifes side who helps Plus I spend a lot of time in Florida myself in the winter when needed
Clint

The cords were removed from the test hives 01/01/2004.
The control hives got new cords and they were fogged after the drop test was completed.
01/04/2004 24 hour mite drop tests were completed on all hives
The control group averaged 2 mites in 24 hours.
The test groups averaged 2 mites in 24 hours.
Both groups were checked for T mites and none were found.
All hives have SHB that were visually seen. All were minor infestations.
GardStar drench was used around all hives in the test.
All hives were considered very strong and had 2 brood boxes and 2 suppers with 10 frames of comb in each.
Clint

Sorry I'm so late getting back. My computer crashed and I was told it was not repairable.
I'm on a borrowed computer now to catch up.
On 01/11/04 the control hives were fogged with FGMO for 5 seconds each after the 24 hour drop test. These hives showed 2 to 5 mites in 24 hours depending on their location.
The test hives were much the same as far as the count.

On 01/18/04 the control hives were again fogged for 5 seconds after a 24 hour drop test that showed 6 to 10 mites.
The test hives showed an increase to 16 to 22 mites in 24 hours.
Next time I plan on doing a sugar roll after the drop test on 1 hive in each group of test and control.
All hives have some SHB visable when hives are opened, but no visable damage yet.
Clint